This invention provides improvements over the inventor's earlier application for a 3D billboard display system. That patent application is U.S. application Ser. No. 15/084,221, (the '221 application) filed 29 Mar. 2016, which is hereby incorporated by reference herein. The billboard display system disclosed in the '221 application utilizes a light source housed in a box-like structure. The light source shines light away from a non-transparent front wall and through a transparent rear wall and thence through a sheet of projection film having an array of images thereon and thence is reflected by a corresponding array of concave mirrors back to corresponding apertures. The apertures are formed at the bottom of indentations, preferably cone-shaped throughout the area of the front wall. The light passes through the apertures and thence out of the indentations to create a 3D image in the eyes of a viewer looking at the front wall.
While many of the operating principles are the same, the present invention includes embodiments that utilize one or more transparent organic light emitting diode (OLED) displays and Liquid Crystal Displays (LCDs) to enable full motion 3D displays. The '221 application uses a display lamp apparatus consisting of a non-transparent front wall with an array of pinholes and indentations, one or more light sources and a transparent rear wall with an array of pinholes. This display lamp apparatus is replaced here entirely by the combination of a transparent OLED display and a pinhole array (transparent spot) parallax barrier, and/or LCDs.
The overall display is expected to display dynamic 3D images on flat screen televisions, monitors, tablets, smartphones, and other electronic display devices without any need for 3D enabling glasses. The term auto-multiscopic is used to define a display that allows multiple viewers to view three-dimensional scenes on a display, simultaneously and without the need for 3D glasses.
The present invention provides a screen display system that displays auto-multiscopic 3D images or videos and may also be used to show 2D images or videos. The images or videos are generated by an array of auto-multiscopic pixels in the space near the display system that share a common imaginary display surface such as a plane. This imaginary display surface may also be curved or contoured. The auto-multiscopic pixels are generated by an array of auto-multiscopic pixel generating cells housed in the display system. Each auto-multiscopic pixel emits a cone of light rays from a fixed point in space. This screen display system enables multiple viewers of the display to see different 3D (or two-dimensional) images on the display from different locations in the space in front of the display.
Standard 3D integral photography was first proposed in 1908 by Gabriel Lippman, as a means of capturing 3D image information using 2D film surfaces. Since then, various methods have been used to display auto-multiscopic 3D images using source images on 2D surfaces, but they all suffer from drawbacks.